What Price Glory?Back to the Roots of Fall's Trends

This week, our champion bargain hunter looks for some of the season’s most sought-after trends (camo, pajama dressing, and quirky jewelry) in their original haunts.

Even as spring 2014 rolls out on New York runways this week, the styles of fall 2013 (you know, the actual season we are in at this very minute) currently crowd boutique racks. At this seminal moment, between the dawn of 2014 and the dusk of 2013, the enduring question: Will fall trends disappear before they even have a chance to leave a shadow, a footprint? Or will they survive for, if not years, at least another twelve months or so? It might be educational (because after all, it is back-to-school time as well, and how happy are you that that isn’t you anymore?) to trace the current styles back to their sources—a fashion version of roots music, if you will.

To wit: Of course you can go to the Louis Vuitton shop for those masterfully floppy pajamas he showed in that strange, louche, utterly seductive hotel-themed show in Paris last March, but you could also stop by Victoria’s Secret and replicate the look with gray satin, subtly printed PJs for $69.50. (While you are there, pick up a lace-laden slip, which, with heels, dark lipstick, and nerve, can convert to an evening frock.) Two yards of marabou for a boa, also seen on MJ runways, is available at M&J Trimming for a ludicrous $9.98 in shades that include peach and raspberry.

Or you might take a page from **Alber Elbaz’**s joyous Lanvin romp, where he draped the models’ pretty necks with gigantic nameplate necklaces bearing words like Cool, Love, and Happy.Mynamenecklace.com will make up whatever you dream up (though many of the samples on their web page say Carrie, in honor of that seminal episode in which Bradshaw recovers her necklace—and her identity—in France.) Hint: Consider ordering from the selection meant for men in order to approximate the blown-out dimensions Alber had in mind.

If you are not at all the type for slinky negligees and goofy jewelry, the tender-tough camo seen at collections as diverse as Christopher Kane and Michael Kors can be given a nod with a tank, a tee, or maybe cap, all under $10, from Uncle Sam’s Army Navy Outfitters at 37 West Eighth Street. And those plaid flannel Kurt Cobain–esque shirts featured prominently in **Hedi Slimane’**s Saint Laurent collection are still hanging out where grunge aficionados, and their sons and daughters, have found them for years—at Carhartt and Pendleton. (A good tailor can narrow these saggy baggies.)

Lastly, a classic biker jacket—which this column tackled a few weeks ago and which I predict will turn up in the next few weeks around town in permutations from kitty-cat flannel to lavender ostrich—is at Schott, where it has resided for decades, in all its plain, unembellished (assuming you don’t count the historically accurate zips and flaps) glory. It may cost around $600, but that’s a small price to pay for an item so iconic that the twisted poet Sid Vicious’s suicide note allegedly read: “…Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.”